LABACA (Latvian American Business Association in California) together with Open Coffee Club Riga invite tech start-up teams from Baltic countries to an investment pitch competition and training event to be held on Friday, June 10 at Stockholm School of Economics, Strēlnieku iela 4a, Riga, LV-1010.

Focus: ICT & engineering start-ups from Latvia, Estonia & Lithuania, which already have developed initial (demo) prototypes and/ or are finalising commercial prototypes of their software or hardware products. They should possess fair idea of their markets and business models, and should look for raising a seed round of 30,000 – 150,000 €.

Pitch format: 10 minutes presentation, followed by Q&A of maximally 5 minutes per project. Pitch should cover topics of Problem, Solution, Market, Competition, Competitive Advantage, Market Entry, Team, Financial Projections, Current Status, and Investment Requirements.

Application process: start-up teams are invited to apply by sending their pitches of the format described above in .ppt to academy@labaca.org. Deadline for applications is Thursday, June 2 18:00 Riga local time. From all applications organisers will select maximally 6 project teams, which will be invited to LABACA Academy pitching competition. Other teams will be encouraged to attend LABACA Academy speakers’ session, held in parallel at the same day (please refer to the Agenda of the event below).

Speakers’ session: while the selected teams will polish and rehearse their pitches, everyone is invited to attend an open session with presentations on pitch format training, business concept formulation, and start-up team formation and development.

Final session – pitching for seed investor community: at the end of the Academy event, after fine-tuning of their presentations, teams will be pitching to Academy jury – investor panel consisting of currently active seed investors, such as members of LABACA Angels Group, Imprimatur Seed Fund managers, and others.

Prizes: while jury will award prize(s) for best investment pitches, the ultimate aim is to get the team into follow-up meetings with currently active seed investors, ending with completing of the seed rounds sought.

Language: all presentations and discussion will be held in English.

Mentors at LABACA Academy event:
Andris Bērziņš (Livebookings, KBZ),
Viesturs Sosārs (LABACA Angels, Real Sound Lab)

Agenda of LABACA Academy Event Friday, June 10, 2011, SSE Riga

MENTORS AND PITCH TEAMS ONLY

9:30 – 10:00 Morning coffee & networking
10:00 – 10:30 Intro about LABACA Academy’s goals and Pitch format overview (V.Sosārs)
10:30 – 12:00 Morning pitches + mentors’ feedback (10+5 minutes) – selected teams
12:00 – 13:30 Lunch & networking
13:30 – 15:30 Pitch improvement and rehearsal with mentors

ALL PARTICAPANTS

14:00 – 15:30 Speakers’ presentations
#1 Pitch format overview of 10+5 minutes format (V.Sosārs)
#2 Formulating the business concept – focus, pivots and evolution(A.Bērziņš)
#3 Talent acquisition and filling in the competencies for a start-up (I.Kronīte, HR manager of DPA)
15:30 – 16:00 Afternoon tea & networking
16:00 – 17:30 Final pitches before the jury
17:30 – 18:00 Announcement of winners
18:00 – Socialising & networking

For additional information please contact: Viesturs Sosārs at angels@labaca.org or Ernests Štāls at ernests@soon.lv